Net Neutrality is Here to Stay

The Save the Internet blog reports that Congress has dismissed Senator Ted Stevens' anti-net neutrality bill. The bill would have been one of many bills aimed at giving massive telecommunications corporations the ability to charge extra fees to guarantee that certain websites operate faster than others. That is, some sites might be excessively slow on purpose so the telecommunications corporations can lure you into using their similar web service - also, internet service providers would introduce restrictive, tiered data plans based on bandwidth usage.

The end of this Congress â€” and death of Sen. Ted Stevensâ€™ bad bill â€” gives us the chance to have a long overdue public conversation about what the future of the Internet should look like. This will not only include ensuring Net Neutrality, but making the Internet faster, more affordable and accessible.

Network Neutrality has been part of the Internet since its inception, ensuring that the service providers who control the â€œpipesâ€ donâ€™t interfere with content based on its ownership or source. â€œNet neutrality is just about fairness and a level playing field,â€ said Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist. â€œItâ€™s that simple.â€

The Save the Internet coalition has collected more than 1.2 million signatures, including mine, for a petition supporting net neutrality. It's a complex issue that many senators are still undeclared about so the battle for net neutrality is far from being over. I feel the telecoms should play no role in how the internet matures, rather they should simply focus on sending uninhibited data packets to and fro servers as fast as they reliably can. What's your stance on net neutrality?

Published 10 Dec 2006

Paul Stamatiou is a designer, developer and photographer living in New York. He has been a product designer at Twitter since 2013. More »